Predator girls aim to return to playoffs

Staff Photo by Bill Bengtson
Fox Creek’s Taylor Sheppard, along with senior classmates Domonique Moore and Keiana Green, will be counted on heavily by the Predators this season.

The Fox Creek High School girls basketball team will be going through some transitions this year.

Last year, the Lady Predators made the playoffs for the first time in school history. Anchored by senior leaders Stefanie Bloedel and Haley Bryant, the team finished the year with an 11-11 overall record, including a 9-3 run through Region 4-A. The team entered the playoffs as a No. 2 seed, but lost to C.A. Johnson in the first round.

This year’s team will feature some familiar faces, including Domonique Moore, Taylor Sheppard and Keiana Green. However, beyond that is a mixture of five sophomores and one freshman.

“We’re pretty young,” said Richard Brady, Fox Creek’s head coach. “We do have Keiana, Domonique and Taylor, who played last year, as well as Constance Mays, who subbed in some but was hurt a good bit of last year. A lot of the girls are brand new, not only to our program, but a lot of them are first-year players.”

That means the burden of leadership will fall to the aforementioned trio.

“It’s not too hard, but it’s not too easy either,” Moore said of stepping into a leadership role. “I go hard on them, but they think about it like, ‘Why are you going hard on me?’ I just want us to be successful, and with such a small team, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.”

Brady said one of the issues facing the team currently is that one player is already hurt. With an already thin roster, the team will have to gel quickly and players will need to fill multiple roles.

Sheppard, Moore, Green and Mays are all entrenched as starters, with the fifth role coming down to Caitlin Patton, Daija Mims and Savannah Eubanks, according to Brady.

Moore said she hopes to step up her game this year. She said her goals include going to college to play basketball on a personal level, and on a team level, making the playoffs once again.

“It’s not going to be difficult,” she said about the possibility of playing more minutes. “If I can put my mind to it, I can do it.”

The team’s first game will be Monday at Silver Bluff. Following that, the team will be in action the next night at Riverview Park Activities Center against Augusta Christian and then participate in a tournament at Augusta Prep on Dec. 5, 6 and 7.

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